On the 10th of December of every year, Human Rights Day is celebrated. But what are human rights? And why do we celebrate Human Rights Day on this date?
Human rights are the inalienable, basic, and indisputable rights that every human being obtain the moment is born. Human rights are worldwide valid, and they include the right to life, right to equality, right to live with human dignity, right to freedom of speech and expression, right to a safe environment, and right against discrimination.
On this day in 1948, the United Nations General Assembly agreed to adopt the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) that India signed. The UDHR is an important document, translated into 500 languages, that indicates the untransferable rights that every human being has nevertheless the race, sex, religion, language, colour, and origin. The first article of the UDHR claims that: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood”.
The International Day aims to inform the population on matters of great concern to put pressure on governments to face global issues and brace the achievements. In fact, this day is observed every year to honour the quoted anniversary, also because it is crucial to keep shining the spotlight on the topic of human rights that affects different countries and especially the minorities.
Unfortunately, even though it might seem difficult to believe women’s human rights are violated daily. In some countries, poverty and all that entails inflicting an absence of fundamental human rights on a large part of the population represented by women. It is visible through different media like paper news, TV channels that violations of human rights that involve women in India occur every day. The Indian constitution ensures equality between women and men. However, it seems that within Indian society, there is a wide gap. The male domination and men’s attitude of feeling superior lead Indian women face discrimination, inequality, and abuse. Women are victims of crimes such as rape, sexual assault, prostitution, sexual exploitation, the demand for dowry, etc… According to the data shared by the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB), in 2018, Delhi accounted for 1,215 cases of rape, 11 cases of attempt to rape, 3,416 cases of cruelty by husbands or relatives, 3,715 cases of women kidnapping, 2,705 cases of outraging the modesty, 18 cases of women related cyber-crime and 153 cases of dowry death.
It is also true that throughout the years, several improvements have been made. The Constitution of India was adopted in 1949 and embodies articles that embrace equality between men and women and non-discrimination. Also, in 1993 the Parliament of India approved the Protection of Human Rights Act. Thanks to this arrangement, it was created the National Human Rights Commission to which women who experienced violations of their human rights could send and express their complaints. Also, Indian women are currently going through significant changes. Indian authorities have been implementing and extending public safety measures introducing helplines and installing CCTV on public transport. Also, police stations hired female police officers to encourage women to report crimes. In addition to this, with the extension of the level of literacy, an increasing number of women is becoming more independent, and wise to what are their own rights. They are now aware of their right to equal treatment, right to property, right to work, and maintenance. Although, a predominance of them is still uninformed about this. Therefore, they are run into dramatic consequences as harassment, manipulation, and injustice. Based on this, even though there have been several improvements, it still exists a wide gap between Indian women and men’s conditions. This reflects that the living condition of women in India is still not acceptable. India needs to apply several changes to ensure the fundamental human rights that will allow women to have a brighter future.
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